Robert Francis O'Rourke, known as Beto O'Rourke and formerly as Rob O'Rourke (born September 26, 1972), served from 2013 to 2019 as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 16th congressional district, based in his native El Paso. He was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in 2018.

O'Rourke was elected to the first of his three terms in Congress in November 2012. Earlier in the year he had unseated the incumbent Representative Silvestre Reyes, a fellow Democrat. Before his congressional years, the businessman O'Rourke represented District 8 on the El Paso City Council.

Despite portraying himself as an "everyman," O'Rourke is more than twice as wealthy as Ted Cruz.[3] During his campaign, he raised $70 million from Hollywood donors and spent $18 million on consultants despite promising not to spend any money on them.[4]

Background

Beto's mugshot.

The Irish-American O'Rourke claims that his nickname "Beto" came from childhood as a shortened name for "Roberto" in Spanish; many of his friends are Hispanic, and El Paso is a predominantly Hispanic city. Beto is considered by many as the penultimate beta-male.[7] At Columbia University in New York City, at which he participated on the rowing team, he was known as "Robert" or "Rob." O'Rourke's mother is the former Melissa Martha Williams. His father was El Paso County Judge Pat Francis O'Rourke, a political associate of former Texas GovernorMark White, whose son, Andrew White, lost the May 22, 2018, Democratic gubernatorial runoff election to the former sheriff of Dallas County, Lupe Valdez. The senior O'Rourke was killed in July 2001, when he was struck from behind by a vehicle while he was riding his bicycle across the state line into New Mexico.[8]

Comparisons with George W. Bush

Beto has been compared to George W. Bush: a rich kid from Texas cited for drunk driving. In 1998, O'Rourke was involved in drunk driving car accident and fled the scene. He later was apprehended and cited for DUI.[9][10]

Hacker and song writer

Among Beto's many attributes is his talent as a poet. In 1988, under the pseudonym "Psychedelic Warlord" as a member of the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow,[11][12] Beto came up with the name of the group.[13] Beto authored "The Song of the Cow:"[14] O'Rourke had an agreement with leftwingmainstream mediajournalists to keep secret his involvement with the hacker group until after his Senate race against Ted Cruz.[15] Ted Cruz responded:

So Reuters had evidence in 2017 that Beto may have committed multiple felonies—which Beto confirmed on the record—but deliberately withheld the story for over a year to help him win his Senate race? But when he’s running against Bernie etc, NOW it’s news?[16]

The Song of the Cow

I need a butt-shine,
Right now
You are holy,
Oh, sacred Cow
I thirst for you,
Provide Milk.

Buff my b*lls,
Love the Cow,
Good fortune for those that do.
Love me, breathe my feet,
The Cow has risen.

Wax my *ss,
Scrub my b*lls.
The Cow has risen,
Provide Milk.

Running over children fiction

Beto O'Rourke also wrote some fiction, including a 3,300 word story where a driver and some kids got elated over the latter party being run over by the former.

“One day, as I was driving home from work, I noticed two children crossing the street. They were happy, happy to be free from their troubles. This happiness was mine by right. I had earned it in my dreams. As I neared the young ones, I put all my weight on my right foot, keeping the accelerator pedal on the floor until I heard the crashing of the two children on the hood, and then the sharp cry of pain from one of the two. I was so fascinated for a moment, that when after I had stopped my vehicle, I just sat in a daze, sweet visions filling my head.”[17]

Political career

In the Republican primary held on March 6, 2018, Cruz defeated four weak intra-party opponents with 1,317,450 votes (85.3 percent). In the Democratic primary, O'Rourke received 641,337 votes (61.8 percent) over two intra-party rivals. Some 506,000 more Republicans voted in the Texas primary than did Democrats.[18]

Unlike Cruz, O'Rourke is not himself Hispanic. He strongly contested Cruz by means of his early start to his campaign, favorable media coverage, strong fund-raising from outside the state, and a media image tailored to resemble "a Kennedy." He was given the same name as Robert Francis Kennedy. Already a Senate candidate in 2017, O'Rourke went to southeastern Texas to observe the Hurricane Harvey relief operations.[19]

O'Rourke was succeeded in the House by fellow Democrat Veronica Escobar, who handily turned back the Republican challenge waged by Rick Seeberger in the November 6, 2018 general election.

Senate campaign

In an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher on March 6, 2018, O'Rourke agreed with liberal host Bill Maher, who labeled Ted Cruz "a giant ass-hole." O'Rourke claimed on the broadcast that voters would "never have to wonder who it is I represent or who I’m voting for. It’s going to be the people of Texas, every single time." O'Rourke said that Cruz has allegedly alienated himself from the mass of Texas voters.[21]

Beto usually is busy raising money from Hollywood elites or diverting campaign funds to illegal aliens.

The Hispanic pop artist Cruz Ortiz of San Antonio makes T-shirts which promote the O'Rourke candidacy with the message, "Beto por Tejas." His work adorns not only museums but Papa John's Pizza boxes as well. According to Gilbert Garcia of The San Antonio Express-News, Ortiz is "that rare artist who can create cutting-edge work with mass appeal. ... That talent has turned him into a key player in Texas Democratic politics." He also helped the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Andrew White, and the congressional race for Gina Ortiz Jones, who failed to unseat Will Hurd in the general election.[22]

O'Rourke is a forceful advocate for illegal aliens. Conditions on the border can be enhanced, he says, if the United States treated people in border cities with “dignity and respect.” He claims that the border is secure and safe and hence opposes a U.S. military presence to thwart invaders.[23]

O'Rourke carries the support of several liberals in the acting profession, such as Connie Britton, a Democrat who played the caring mother and wife on the former NBCtelevision series, Friday Night Lights.[24] Other celebrities on the O'Rourke team are Sarah Jessica Parker, formerly with the television series Sex and the City, and talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, a long-term critic of President Trump.[25]

In April 2018, O'Rourke addressed a gathering of five hundred at Texas Tech University in the usually Republican city of Lubbock. In his speech, he denounced what he called Republican "paranoia, the fear, the divisiveness, the smallness that distinguishes that kind of thinking and leadership." Instead, O'Rourke vowed to promote "confidence and a courage and a strength and a kindness and a big heart that can only come from Texas."[26] At that same meeting, O'Rourke said that he had seen enough evidence to warrant the impeachment of President Trump. A few days later at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, O'Rourke denied that he is pre-committed to impeachment: "I never brought this issue up." O'Rourke described impeachment as "perhaps the most serious and solemn responsibility" for members of Congress and "not something we should trifle with or campaign on."[27] Ultimately Cruz won Lubbock County, 58,709 (64.2 percent) to O'Rourke's 31,976 (35 percent).

Beto displaying his awesome popular appeal and immense social media skills.

By July, however, O'Rourke said that he could immediately vote as a House member to impeach Trump based on what liberals and the fake news media claimed was a disastrous summit appearance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.[28]

Bssed on O'Rourke's successful fund-raising, large crowds at campaign rallies, and respectable opinion polling, the magazine Politico declared that "Beto-mania" was sweeping Texas.[29]

In August 2018, O'Rourke embarked on a 34-day road trip of all 254 counties in a white Dodge Grand Caravan. He stopped in such faraway rural communities as Archer City on the north central plains, which is portrayed as a dying town in the 1971 Peter Bogdanovich film, The Last Picture Show. O'Rourke is the first Democrat to campaign for the Senate in Archer City since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1948. Rarely has a Democratic candidate in Texas paid such close attention to rural counties.[30] Later in the month in Texas City in Galveston County, O'Rourke drew an enthusiastic crowd of more than eight hundred at the Charles T. Doyle Convention Center. The crowd was compared to the throngs in 1990 that came out to support the Democrat Ann Richards in her successful gubernatorial race against Republican Clayton Wheat Williams, Jr. In his speech, the normally highly partisan O'Rourke called for "bipartisanship" and noted the passage of a veterans mental health care bill that he had sponsored, which President Trump signed into law in April: "It was a sign the different parties could — and should — still work together," O'Rourke said.[31]

Having waged a vigorous campaign with huge funding assets, he came within 220,000 votes of unseating the incumbent RepublicanTed Cruz in the November 6 general election. Cruz finished with 4,240,942 votes (50.9 percent) to O'Rourke's 4,017,851 (48.3 percent).[32]

Gilbert Garcia, the San Antonio journalist, notes that O'Rourke would immediately become mentioned as a future presidential possibility if he had succeeded in upsetting Cruz. "With his Kennedy-esque looks and defiantly idealistic exuberance, he has that rare ability to inspire voters" while establishment politicians make voting a dull civic exercise not much different from "eating your broccoli".[25] Yet even in defeat, O'Rourke remains one of the leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Presidential campaign

In announcing his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president in March 2019, O'Rourke boasted of his white privilege: "I was born to do this."[33] Despite the high-profile liberal/communist media roll out of his campaign, Beto's run fizzled immediately with the rise of gay rightsactivistPete Buttigieg. A critic described Beto's speaking style:

He talked in a fluid, energetic, run-on style that was interesting to listen to — at first. As soon as you thought you had caught up with one chunk of clever rhetoric he moved on to the next set-piece, so you could never really process what he was saying. The more he spoke, the more his phrases grew monotonous in aggregate, and his animated talking points merged into each other, a river of charming progressivism in isolation; overwhelming and almost incomprehensible when unloaded all at once.[34]

According to CNN, Beto beats President Trump in a head-to-head matchup by 10%.

Willie Nelson, outed as a virulent racist who sings in celebration of public lynchings,[35][36][37] is an enthusiastic Beto supporter.[38]

Prophet of doom

3873 Days Until Final Destruction of the Planet

Beto has appealed to fear rather than hope, claiming imminent destruction of the planet by capitalism is ten years. Beto's plan of salvation would double taxes and shrink the U.S. economy by 25% in ten years. O'Rourke introduced a plan to fight global warming that is larger than the federal budget.